For many kathoeys like Jip, this was the first time they had positive kathoey role models in the national spotlight. A few years later, their story was immortalized in a film also called the “Iron Ladies,” which was the highest-ever grossing Thai film at the time. In 1996, a Thai volleyball team comprised of kathoeys known as the “Iron Ladies” shocked the country by winning the men’s national championship. She described how employers regarded kathoeys as troublemakers and sex workers, and at one job she recalls a kathoey accountant who had been asked by her boss if she was a “stripper.” While she enjoyed significant career success, she was afraid of discrimination if she was openly kathoey. Jip was fortunate to graduate from Polytechnical school and enter the field of programming as computing began to take off in 1990s. Jip both identifies with being part of Thai kathoey culture, and identifies as a transgender woman.Ĭalypso Cabaret in Bangkok, 20s: Computers and the Kathoey Volleyball Team That Shook Thailand “second type of women.” But as Jip’s story illustrates, in the last 20 years some kathoeys, inspired by the global transgender movement, have begun understanding themselves not as a gender category outside of womanhood, but as women.

Many kathoeys live as effeminate/homosexual men, while others express their gender in a way closer to cisgender women, sometimes referred to as “sao bra phedt song,” i.e.

For much of Buddhist and Thai history, kathoey has been seen as a “third gender” existing outside of man/woman, and as part of the natural cycle of rebirth. Photo on display at Bangkok’s DJ Station LGBTQ nightclubīut before I share some of her story, it’s important to explain the term, “kathoey,” also often loosely translated to “ ladyboy.” Kathoey is a Thai gender/sexual identity with thousands of years of history, going back to Buddhist origin myths in the Tipiṭaka written in the 1st Century BC.

Thai kathoey pics